Boyertown is a place working to erase hate

Through the decades, the Boyertown Area School District has worn its share of labels, some deserved more than others, some rooted in the agricultural heritage of the district and others in the lack of diversity among the student population.

The predominantly white district has had openly racist factions through the years, including a small group of hooded Ku Klux Klan members who actively recruited on street corners in the 1990s. An undercurrent of racism has plagued Boyertown for decades.

But Boyertown has worked hard to become a place of pride more than prejudice. The school community was the first school district in Pennsylvania to earn the “No Place for Hate” designation by the AntiDefamation League in 2006, illustrated in a mural on East Philadelphia Avenue depicting a diverse parade of people marching together and declaring a town of unity.

So when that mural was defaced with racist graffiti earlier this month, there was first outrage and then determination. Within 24 hours of the vandalism, community members rallied to reaffirm their rejection of hate and plans were underway to restore the iconic image.

About 50 people organized by the Positive Parent Connection of Boyertown gathered October 6 in the parking lot of Rita’s Water Ice, where the mural is located, to see the damage for themselves and to make a statement of support for its sentiments.

Chants of “No Silence!” and “We Want Peace!,” led by members of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP, reverberated across East Philadelphia Avenue during the early evening gathering, reported Mercury staff writer Evan Brandt.

An online fundraising campaign organized by Building a Better Boyertown has raised more than $18,000 to restore the mural. The Berks County Community Foundation and the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation, have both offered a match of up to $2,500 toward the restoration.

“That mural has been very important to our community and to see it vandalized like that has been absolutely crushing,” said Jillian Magee, Main Street Manager in Boyertown. But as dispiriting as the vandalism has been, spirits have been lifted by community response “which was immediate and fierce,” she said.

The Boyertown vandalism was one of several recent recurrences of the long-lingering racism in our region.

Brandt reported in September on a federal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education about alleged racism experienced by a student in Daniel Boone schools. He talked to students and parents who said the complaint may be just the tip of the iceberg for the Berks County school district.

The district is in the midst of fulfilling the conditions of a “Voluntary Resolution Agreement” with the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights over the complaint, which relates to a single student’s experiences at Daniel Boone High School. But it is hardly the only incident, according to those interviewed.

Incidents recounted on all school levels included harassment of a sixth grader in Daniel Boone Middle School whose mother learned that students were asking him for an “NPass,” permission to use the Nword without the consequences that should come as a result of using the racist insult.

In Coatesville Area School District, students were sent home on October 8 in response to a social media shooting threat that included the words “I hope to see a lot of black dead.” A student was arrested and charged in the incident, which he claimed was “a joke.”

Schools are responding to the complaints, but not always with the speed and severity of punishment that many would like to see. Even in Boyertown, with its “No Place for Hate” mantra, the school board has declined to vote on a resolution decrying racism.

What most frightens those who combat racism are the things that go on without being confronted — name calling, social media shares, Confederate flags on display — that occur in schools and communities throughout the region. Racism is part of an ugly past, and it remains part of our divided present.

Boyertown’s unified response to the defacing of their mural sets an example for all of us — that we keep working toward that spirit of harmony, that we have a declaration of purpose which is more than a slogan, and that we truly become a community and a region that is “no place for hate.”